Wednesday, 7 October 2015

Revenge Of The Lawn - Richard Brautigan

REVENGE
OF THE LAWN - RICHARD BRAUTIGAN

Idiosyncrasy Central with Richard Brautigan. Was a time when his
flame burned brightly and he was showered with critical acclaim,
particularly with the publication of his short story collection Trout
Fishing In America. It didn't last for long, however, and he soon
fell out of favour and from grace. Published in 1971, Revenge Of
The Lawn offers clues as to why this might have been.

Of the 62 short stories collected here, just a few of them are
actually worthy of publication. I mean, they're alright but they read
as though they're really ideas for short stories taken from a
notebook rather than fully developed pieces. Written over a period of
about 7 years, there's little to suggest (unlike in Trout Fishing)
any sort of theme or focus. They even come across as almost a cash-in
on the success of Trout Fishing, as though his publisher was keen to
get another book out to Brautigan's newly established readership and
so asked him what else he had? "Well, I've got these,"
Brautigan possibly replied "But they're really just my
notebooks." His publisher took them anyway: "It's
cool, man. Your readers will dig 'em," so his notebooks were
published under the title Revenge Of The Lawn without taking into
consideration what it was that made Trout Fishing In America so
endearing.

Of all the stories and observations presented here, only two really
stand out and perhaps it's no coincidence that they're also two of
the longest?

Post Offices Of Eastern Oregon concerns itself with the news of the
death of Marilyn Monroe and the memory it evokes in Brautigan. It
takes him back to the time when he was a child and going on a hunting
trip with his uncle. They arrive at a small town in Oregon and see
two dead bear cubs being lifted from the back of a pickup truck and
laid onto a porch of a house.

He and his uncle go to a post office to send a postcard and in there
on a wall he sees a large nude photograph of Marilyn Monroe, which
seems to him to be a strange thing to have on a wall of such a place.
When they go back outside, the bears have gone and none of the town
folk seem to know where. They're finally discovered on a side street
sitting in the front seat of a car. One is now wearing a checked
shirt, a red hunting hat and has a pipe in its mouth; the other is
wearing a white silk negligee, felt slippers and a pink bonnet - and
there's a purse in its lap:

'Somebody opened up the purse, but there wasn't anything inside. I
don't know what they expected to find, but they were disappointed.
What would a dead bear carry in its purse, anyway?'

The other story that stands out, entitled A Short History Of Oregon,
is a snapshot of a memory of a time when aged sixteen Brautigan went
out hunting by himself. It's pouring down with rain and he believes
himself to be alone in the woods until he comes across a house at the
end of a logging road. As he'd been enjoying the solitude, the
discovery disappoints him.

From out of the house four children suddenly emerge and in silence
watch him as he walks by, his gun cradled in his arms. The children
don't say a word, and instead just stand there getting soaked from
the rain:

'I didn't say a word in my passing. The kids were soaking wet now.
They huddled together in silence on the porch. I had no reason to
believe that there was anything more to life than this.'

It's when writing like this that Brautigan is at his best as he
conjures up both child-like innocence and the surreal, with one
always bleeding into the other. He evokes a stoned-like ambience and
imbues his stories with a sense of wonderment and hidden meaning.
Ideal reading for hippies, in a way, contemplating how many angels
can dance on the head of a pin.

Brautigan's appeal, however, was a double-edged sword and he
struggled to retain the attention and interest of his readership; not
helped by his publisher putting out books of lesser quality such as
Revenge Of The Lawn. Inevitably, obscurity beckoned.

Having said that, I would still suggest that Richard Brautigan
deserves to be remembered and not just left consigned to the past as
a relic of the Sixties, if only for no other reason than for him and
his writing being and remaining ever so slightly odd.